Definition:Box-and-Whisker Diagram

Definition

A box-and-whisker diagram is a graphical representation of the information contained in a five-number summary.

By presenting more than one such plot next to each other in the same diagram, it is then possible to see major differences between their characteristics.

Box

The box is a rectangle whose length is an indication of the interquartile range, divided in two by the median.

The breadth of this box is arbitrary.

Whiskers

The whiskers are lines extending from the box which indicate the range.

Examples

Arbitrary Example

The diagram above shows two such box-and-whisker diagrams, illustrating samples with the five-number summaries:

$(1): \quad 2 \quad 17 \quad 23 \quad 49 \quad 71$

$(2): \quad 6 \quad 11 \quad 25 \quad 56 \quad 93$

Also known as

A box-and-whisker diagram is also known as a boxplot or box plot.

Also see

• Results about box-and-whisker diagrams can be found here.

Sources

• 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): box-and-whisker diagram
• 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): box-and-whisker diagram (boxplot)
• 2014: Christopher Clapham and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (5th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): box plot